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It's raining on Ford in Europe (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We all know the struggles that General Motors has had in Europe. Now, it's Ford's turn in the barrel. Earlier this month, Ford gave a profit warning on its international operations, and this morning, the stark outlook was there in its second quarter press release.

Ford expects to lose $1 billion on its European operations this year, a stunning projection given that Ford had seemed to escape the troubles that have roiled GM's Opel division. Now, Ford could end up in worse shape than Opel, at least in the short term.

The company's second quarter results showed a $404 million operating loss in Europe, pushing it over a half-billion dollars lost there in the first half of the year.

That's a sharp swing from a year ago. During the second quarter of 2011, Ford earned a $176 million operating profit in Europe, and it earned $469 million in Europe during the first half of 2011.

It seems like no company is avoiding the uncertain situation in Europe, where automakers have been concerned for months, but in its news release, Ford warned that the problems may not be over soon.

"The company recognizes the seriousness of the situation in Europe, and views the challenges the industry faces as more structural than cyclical in nature," the company said. "While Ford is affected significantly because of its strong presence in the region, the company understands what is needed to achieve profitability and to generate an appropriate return on investments."

Translated, that means Ford is likely to need to close one or more of its European factories, although the company said today it has nothing to announce on that score. "We think it is a structural issue," Ford CEO Alan Mulally said, when asked out right if Ford would be shutting plants. He added that as Ford develops its plan, it would include all its stakeholders in the discussions -- a sign Ford will be going to its unions.

AlixPartners recently outlined reasons behind Europe's deep problems. Unlike their counterparts in the United States, European companies didn't use the recession as an opportunity to close factories, something that many countries' laws make it hard to do. Meanwhile, automakers kept building new plants in eastern Europe and in Russia, which is only adding to the problem.

Ford, analysts say, is using only about 65 percent of its European manufacturing capacity. The issue is magnified because the company now is streamlining and consolidating its manufacturing processes around the world. Ideally, any plant in any part of Ford's operations should be able to build vehicles that could be exported elsewhere, meaning it is no longer wedded to capacity in particular locations.

But Ford officials emphasized that they cannot cut their way to break even in Europe. When asked by analysts if Ford can simply slice $1 billion from its European operations to make up for the loss, CFO Bob Shanks replied, "It's got to be a revenue story and a cost story."

Ford's Euro-mess comes on the heels of the dire situation for Opel, which fired its chief executive earlier this month, and which has been struggling for months to come up with the details of a workable restructuring plan. But Opel has had quite a head start on Ford, which now will have to launch into its own European turnaround plan, at a time when market conditions are even worse than what Opel originally faced.

The $1 billion loss is potentially more than GM will lose at Opel this year, although it isn't clear yet just how deep GM's losses will be. GM has lost $16.4 billion in Europe since 1999, according to Bloomberg.

Earlier this summer, Forbes' Joann Muller wrote that Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne seemed to be the only European chief executive who was crying the blues about the situation. At the time, he didn't have any backup singers. Now, Marchionne is likely to have a whole chorus behind him, although Mulally isn't yet willing to say if he will join Marchionne in putting pressure on European unions.

Part of its restructuring plan, he repeated, is that "we include all the stakeholders